


No More

by vands88



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Episode Fix-it, Episode Related, F/F, F/M, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, OT3, Post-Episode: s02e08, Pre-OT3, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-19
Updated: 2014-12-19
Packaged: 2018-03-02 07:05:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2803856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vands88/pseuds/vands88
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post 2x08: Spacewalker. Clarke gets back to camp with blood still on her hands to see Bellamy kneeling in the dirt and Raven crying uncontrollably in his arms.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No More

**Author's Note:**

> I totally blame this on seeing Bellamy and Raven nervously watching Clarke as she went down to the Grounders. My OT3 feels exploded, and Finn's death was so brutal, I just had to try and fix-it, okay? 
> 
> Unbeta'd and won't be proof-read until tomorrow morning because I am way too tired. In the meantime, if you want to point out mistakes, please do, and I'll fix 'em.

Clarke doesn’t remember the walk back to Camp Jaha. Lexa had called off the Grounders, Clarke knows that, she remembers the crowd parting for her like the Red Sea, but she doesn’t know what was said, or how angry they looked, having their anticipated justice stripped from them. She doesn’t know how she gets back because she is only aware of three things: the intimate touch of the kiss, the warmth of his blood pouring across her skin, and the piercing sound of Raven’s scream that still seems to echo in Clarke’s head. Kiss, blood, scream: Repeat.

People gather at the gates, but Clarke says nothing at their persistent questions, just walks away. They all know what happened. They begin to back away when they realise she won’t speak. Even her mother leaves when she sees where Clarke is headed. Kiss, blood, scream. She has to blink away the blood in her vision but she does eventually see them, exactly where she had left them. Bellamy and Raven. Safe behind the fence, the place where they had looked out towards the erect pole and the Grounder camp that surrounded it, but no one is looking now. Clarke doesn’t want to see Finn’s body, unmoving, slouched against that pole. Or worse, if he’s not there. If they have so little respect for the dead, that they have… No. She blinks, and her vision clears again.

Bellamy looks up at her as she approaches. He is kneeling in the dirt, his eyes imploring her, somehow both asking for, and offering, help. Clarke can’t hear Raven’s cries over the ringing in her ears, but she can see the whimpers forming on her lips as she curls up on Bellamy’s lap. It’s ugly, uncontrollable crying; Clarke can see her struggling for breath through the tears. She spent nights like this after Wells died, lying in her tent, trying to stifle her anger and guilt and emptiness with a coat sleeve stuffed in her mouth, so the others wouldn’t wake. If grief is loneliness, then they must all be so incredibly lonely.

Clarke reaches out to reassure Raven but a gentle pressure on her wrist stills her. She looks down at Bellamy’s hand and realises that, this time, the blood isn’t her imagination. The hand she reached out to touch Raven, is the same hand that killed Finn. The knife is still clutched in her hand. She tries to let go, she tries to move, but her hand is shaking and it won’t stop. Bellamy hasn’t stopped looking at her the whole time, in that way of his that makes you feel see-through. One of his hands is still stroking Raven’s hair and his mouth sometimes moves in ways that makes Clarke think he’s soothing her, but his eyes stay on Clarke, and the hand that was on her wrist, slowly moves down to her hand. Warily, he begins to pry her fingers away. Her knuckles ache as they release one by one. She must have been holding the knife tightly. She lets his fingers untangle hers and place the knife out of sight. She likes to imagine his touch was gentle. It looked gentle, but looks can be deceiving.

Kiss. Blood. Scream.

Clarke opens her eyes again to see herself kneeling on the ground next to them. Her forehead is resting atop Raven’s, Bellamy’s hand is rubbing circles at the base of her neck, and Clarke hears herself whisper, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”

There is a clink behind them, and the absence of Bellamy’s hand is explained moments afterwards by the wipe of a wet, cold cloth against her bloodied hand. Someone must have bought them a bucket, Murphy maybe, or Wick, Octavia… there are a few friends here.  

Clarke raises herself enough to be able to look down at Raven, her whimpers have stopped but the tears still stream and there is a new kind of shaking, one that might be to do with the cold rather than the shock. How long have they been here? Clarke wipes away a tear with her thumb. The clean hand. She can still feel Bellamy cleaning the other. Raven’s eyes snap open with a sudden awareness, and they stare at each other, upside down, but it makes no difference: they see the same thing. Clarke's litany of apologies ceases at Raven’s gaze.

Raven reaches up to mirror Clarke’s position, resting her palm against Clarke’s cheek. “Thank you for… It was better than…”

Clarke nods sadly, and they let their arms drop. She doesn’t need to hear the end of the sentences.

The splash of water stops and instead there is a dry towel against Clarke’s hand. It’s gentle, she can feel it now.

“You’re cold,” Bellamy says. It takes a minute for Clarke to realise he’s not talking to her, but to Raven, his hand pressed against her arm.

“Let’s get her inside,” Clarke says, grateful for something to do.

Bellamy doesn’t comment on the way her voice is cracked with crying, just as she doesn’t comment on how she see-through Bellamy’s plan is. Clarke’s a leader too, she’s manipulated him the same way before, used the excuse of Octavia to make sure he takes care of himself. The truth is, Bellamy wants them both inside; safe and warm, and Clarke doesn’t have the energy to fight him.

She stands and when the world has finished spinning, she realises there are no longer lights in the valley. The Grounders have moved, or perhaps just extinguished their torches. The ringing in her ears has stopped but there is nothing to hear; the valley and the camp are quiet. A few guards linger by the gates but they don’t look anxious. How long have they been knelt in the dirt in mourning?

“I can walk,” Raven mumbles sleepily. Clarke and Bellamy exchange a look of disbelief, a brief moment of amusement, before they link their arms around Raven’s waist and walk away from the fence. Clarke knows it hurts Raven’s pride - they may not have been in the operating theatre when Raven discovered she’d lost use of her leg, but they both saw her stubbornly hop around camp afterwards refusing everybody’s help for weeks - but Raven must be smart enough to know that this support isn’t just for her. As much as it pains her to admit it, right now, Clarke needs to feel Raven’s arm around her waist, and to know that Bellamy is leading the way.

He leads them to his tent, of course he does. Clarke knows the adults think he’s strange for doing it; living under canvas when he could be living under metal, but she understands. The truth is, they all got used to sleeping on the ground with fabric flapping in the breeze. But more than that, it’s a reminder of the hundred; of their people still in Mount Weather. She understands, and right now, it feels more like home than anywhere else.

Bellamy opens the flap and they walk through one by one. It’s a tight fit, but they’ve made do with worse before, and she’s tired. She would have slept out on the ground if it weren’t for Bellamy. Raven fell onto the blankets almost as soon as she walked through the tent and now Bellamy kneels down to take off her boots. Raven makes a small movement with her hands, as if to wave him off, but even her pride cannot beat her exhaustion.

When Bellamy realises Clarke is still standing by the tent opening (with an arm of Raven’s jacket in his hands), he turns towards her. “There’s room,” he says with a tilt of his head, “you should get some sleep.”

Clarke nods, but doesn’t move. He finishes taking off Raven’s jacket and throws a blanket over her. She’s fast asleep, but her breath catches every now and then on trapped tears in her throat.

Kiss. Blood. Sc-

Bellamy walks towards Clarke until they are both standing close together in the apex of the tent. “Okay, what is it?” he asks.

Clarke looks towards Raven, and Bellamy follows her gaze moments afterwards. “No more,” she says. She turns back towards him, “No more death. We are not losing any more of our people, whatever the cost. No more.”

She expects him to tell her the realities. Remind her that for all they know, their people could be dead at Mount Weather already. To tell her about risk, and philosophy, and when its sometimes necessary to sacrifice some to save the majority. But, he doesn’t. He would have before. Back when they were at each others' throats, before the war on the Grounders, before Mount Weather, before the Ark landed… he would argue. But then, she realises, he has lost people too. He watched someone fall to their death only days ago.

Bellamy is still watching Raven, but when he turns back to Clarke he is nothing but sincere. “Okay,” he says, and it’s not a platitude or a lie, he says it as if he believes they can do it, as if it’s a goddamn _promise_. “No more.”

“Okay,” Clarke repeats.

He nods with a small smile and squeezes her hand. She can feel it this time: the pressure, the warmth, the brush of his fingers as they retreat. That's a kind of promise too.

He leads her towards the bed, and nestles her beneath the covers. She settles so her arm is around Raven’s still form, anchoring her, and Bellamy falls down on the other side of Clarke with a sigh, staring up at the ceiling with his head pillowed in his arms. He's keeping watch, she realises, his gun is still within reach. She could tell him there’s no need, because there is no need now the night is quiet and Grounders have what they want, but Bellamy probably knows this. It’s instinct. But it’s late, and in an hour or so, she knows he will give in.

“Sleep soon, won’t you?” she whispers over her shoulder.

“Don’t you worry about that, Princess,” he whispers back, and Clarke’s tries to chase the sound of Finn’s voice out of her head. Bellamy means well with his teasing, they all do, but she wonders if the nickname will ever have the same levity again. She loves too much and she has lost too much.

He seems to sense her thoughts, sighs again, as if in defeat, and rolls away from the gun to lie closer to her, barely touching except for the press of his nose against her shoulder. “Sleep,” he mutters into her skin.

The grief will still be there tomorrow, she knows. This won’t fix it. She will still have killed a man. A boy. Her lover. There will still be tears, and pain, and probably still a war. But in the silence of the familiar tent it’s easy to fall asleep between two warm bodies and the sound of breathing that means they are all still somehow _alive_.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! If you're a tumblr-like person, then [this is me](http://vands88.tumblr.com/). 
> 
> P.S. It's no secret I suck at titles but does "No More" make anyone else want to break out into Poe? I mean, Raven and all, it is kinda relevant...


End file.
